I don't care what anybody says; most of the poets I know are crazy. That's why I like them. They know the world isn't as safe or as respectable as it pretends to be. Sometimes it's only our egos that keep us going.
The poet, Eric Beach, used to have a calling card that said:
Eric Beach
Poet
No Fixed Address
It was meant to be funny, but it was also true. I suppose it's true for any number of poets.
Most of the poets I know are outsiders. Oh sure, they might have a house to live in, or friends they can stay with, but there's no way they can ever settle down, or if they can they never feel completely at home. Writing and performing poetry is their way of trying to recollect the world, a way of trying to retrieve what's been lost, an attempt to find their way home, wherever home might be.
The best poets thrive on paradox. And the poetic vision can be liberating so long as you don't let the past get you down. Since the early 1970s, the Melbourne poets have been a highly experimental and confronting literary force within Australian society, and the poet who seemed most confronting of all was Eric Beach.
Eric was the sort of person I would've taken home to meet my mother even though she probably wouldn't have liked him. Judging by appearances, he was completely uncouth. The small, ex-pat Kiwi poet with bed-sit eyes and long black eyebrows seldom brushed his teeth or combed his hair. He was also famous for never changing his socks. But none of this had anything to do with any lack of self-esteem. He just had more important things on his mind.
In his legendary autobiographical poem, Nobody Thinks That I Look My Best, Eric described his own life with wry and sometimes brutal irony:
I was unfed & forcibly educated, but luckily I won a scholarship to a bodgie gang, who were rather like scouts... during th night I worked in a cemetary & during th day I tried to cough up blood... i didn't come to australia, I just new zealand..."
Around the time his teeth started to rot and fall out he received a substantial literary grant from the Australian government. He reckoned he'd be able to concentrate a lot more on his writing if he could rid himself of the pain his teeth were causing him, so he used the grant money to get them fixed.
Eric's clothes had a life of their own. The way they arranged themselves around his body, you got the impression they were looking for a place to sit down. Even when they did fit, they still didn't look right. The long-sleeved shirt was permanently unpressed; his shirt-tail was always out; and the brown corduroy jacket which had become his trademark was a rainbow of stains.
Poet
No Fixed Address
It was meant to be funny, but it was also true. I suppose it's true for any number of poets.
Most of the poets I know are outsiders. Oh sure, they might have a house to live in, or friends they can stay with, but there's no way they can ever settle down, or if they can they never feel completely at home. Writing and performing poetry is their way of trying to recollect the world, a way of trying to retrieve what's been lost, an attempt to find their way home, wherever home might be.
The best poets thrive on paradox. And the poetic vision can be liberating so long as you don't let the past get you down. Since the early 1970s, the Melbourne poets have been a highly experimental and confronting literary force within Australian society, and the poet who seemed most confronting of all was Eric Beach.
Eric was the sort of person I would've taken home to meet my mother even though she probably wouldn't have liked him. Judging by appearances, he was completely uncouth. The small, ex-pat Kiwi poet with bed-sit eyes and long black eyebrows seldom brushed his teeth or combed his hair. He was also famous for never changing his socks. But none of this had anything to do with any lack of self-esteem. He just had more important things on his mind.
In his legendary autobiographical poem, Nobody Thinks That I Look My Best, Eric described his own life with wry and sometimes brutal irony:
I was unfed & forcibly educated, but luckily I won a scholarship to a bodgie gang, who were rather like scouts... during th night I worked in a cemetary & during th day I tried to cough up blood... i didn't come to australia, I just new zealand..."
Around the time his teeth started to rot and fall out he received a substantial literary grant from the Australian government. He reckoned he'd be able to concentrate a lot more on his writing if he could rid himself of the pain his teeth were causing him, so he used the grant money to get them fixed.
Eric's clothes had a life of their own. The way they arranged themselves around his body, you got the impression they were looking for a place to sit down. Even when they did fit, they still didn't look right. The long-sleeved shirt was permanently unpressed; his shirt-tail was always out; and the brown corduroy jacket which had become his trademark was a rainbow of stains.
The copyright of the article Eric Beach - an appreciation in Performance Poetry is owned by . Permission to republish Eric Beach - an appreciation in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
